Are the heat waves really getting more extreme? This question popped up after the summer of 2003 in Europe, and yet again after this hot Russian summer. The European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which normally doesn’t make much noise about climate issues, has since made a statement about July global mean temperature being record warm:
Consistent with widespread media reports of extreme heat and adverse impacts in various places, the latest results from ERA-Interim indicate that the average temperature over land areas of the extratropical northern hemisphere reached a new high in July 2010. May and June 2010 were also unusually warm.
Here, the ERA-Interim, also referred to as ‘ERAINT’, is the ECMWF’s state-of-the-art reanalysis. But the ERAINT describes the atmospheric state only since 1989, and in isolation, it is not the ideal data set for making inferences about long-term climate change because it doesn’t go all that far back in time. However, the statement also draws on the longer reanalysis known as the ERA40 re-analysis, spanning the time interval 1957-2002. Thus, taken into context of ERA40, the ECMWF has some legitimacy behind their statement.
The ERAINT reanalysis is a product of all suitable measurements fed into a model of the atmosphere, describing all the known relevant physical laws and processes. Basically, reanalyses represent the most complete and accurate picture that we can give for the day-to-day atmosphere, incorporating all useful information we have (satellites, ground observations, ships, buoys, aircrafts, radiosondes, rawinsondes). They can also be used to reconstruct things at finer spatial and temporal scales than is possible using met station data, based on physical rules provided by weather models.
The reanalyses are closely tied to the measurements at most locations where observations – such as 2-meter temperature, T(2m), or surface pressure – are provided and used in the data assimilation. Data assimilation is a way of making the model follow the observations as closely as possible at the locations where they are provided, hence constraining the atmospheric model. The constraining of the atmospheric model affect the predictions where there are no observations because most of the weather elements – except for precipitation – do not change abruptly over short distance (mathematically, we say that they are described by ‘spatially smooth and slowly changing functions’).
There are also locations – notably the in the Polar regions and over Africa – where ground-based measurements are sparse, and where much is left for the weather models to predict without observational constraints. In such regions, the description may be biased by model shortcomings, and different reanalysis may provide a different regional picture of the surface conditions. Surface variables such as T(2m) are strongly affected by their environment, which may be represented differently in different weather models (e.g. different spatial resolution implies different altitudes) and therefore is a reason for differences between reanalyses.
Furthermore, soil moisture may affect T(2m), linking temperature to precipitation. The energy flow (heat fluxes) between the ground/lakes/sea and the atmosphere may also affect surface temperatures. However, both precipitation and heat fluxes are computed by the reanalysis atmosphere model without direct constraints, and are therefore only loosely tied to the observations fed into the models. Furthermore, both heat fluxes and precipitation can vary substantially over short distances, and are often not smooth spatial functions.
While the evidence suggesting more extremely high temperatures are mounting over time, the number of resources offering data is also growing. Some of these involve satellite borne remote sensing instruments, but many data sets do not incorporate such data.
In the book “A Vast Machine“, Paul N. Edwards discusses various types of data and how all data involve some type of modelling, even barometers and thermometers. It also provides an account on the observational network, models, and the knowledge we have derived from these. Myles Allen has written a review of this book in Nature, and I have reviewed it for Physics World (subscription required for the latter).
All data need to be screened though a quality control, to eliminate misreadings, instrument failure, or other types of errors. A typical screening criterion is to check whether e.g. the temperature estimated by satellite remote sensing is unrealistically high, but sometimes such screening may also throw out valid data, such as was the case of the Antarctic ozone hole. Such post-processing is done differently in analyses, satellite measurements, and reanalyses.
The global mean temperature estimated from the ERAINT, however, is not very different from other analyses or reanalyses (see figure below) for the time they overlap. We also see a good agreement between the ERA40 reanalysis, the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, and the traditional datasets – analyses – of gridded temperature (GISTEMP, HadCRUT3v, NCDC).
Do the ERAINT and ERA40 provide a sufficient basis for making meaningful
inferences about extreme temperatures and unprecedented heat waves? An important point with reanalyses, is that the model used doesn’t change over the time spanned by the analysis, but reanalyses are generally used with caution for climate change studies because the number and type of observations being fed into the computer model changes over time. Changes in the number of observations and instruments is also an issue affecting the more traditional analyses.
Since the ERAINT only goes as far back as 1989, it involves many modern satellite-borne remote sensing measurements, and it is believed that there are less problems with observational network discontinuity after this date than in the earlier days. It may be more problematic studying trends in the ERA40 data, due to huge improvements in the observational platforms between 1958 and now. Hence, it is important also to look at individual long-term series of high quality. These series have to be ‘homogeneous’, meaning that they need to reflect the local climate variable consistently through its span, not being affected by changes in the local environment, instrumentation, and measurement practices.
An analysis I published in 2004, looking at how often record-high monthly temperatures recur, indicated that record-breaking monthly mean temperature have been more frequent that they would have been if the climate were not getting hotter. This analysis supports the ECMWF statement, and was based on a few high-quality temperature series scattered across our planet, chosen to be sufficiently far from each other to minimize mutual dependencies that can bias the analysis.
The ECMWF provides data for some climate indices, such as the global mean temperature, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a web site for extreme temperatures and precipitation around the world with an interactive map, showing the warmest and coldest sites on the continents. Another useful tool is the KNMI ClimateExplorer, where people can both access data and carry out different analyses on line. It is also possible to get climate data on your iPhone/iPod Touch through Apps like Climate Mobile.
Update: I just learned that NOAA recently has launched a Climate Services Portal on www.climate.gov.
Update: http://rimfrost.no/ is another site that provides station-based climate data. The site shows linear trends estimated for the last 50 years.
Oh, my. This goes way back, doesn’t it?
“Those who [advocate] reformation of institutions pari passu with the progress of science [maintain] that no definite limits [can] be assigned to that progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, [deny] improvement and [advocate] steady adherence to the principles, practices and institutions of our fathers, which they [represent] as the consummation of wisdom and acme of excellence, beyond which the human mind could never advance.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:254
The following is a post I made to Judith Curry’s discussion of the Pakistani floods on Climate Etc in responce to this post:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/20/pakistan-on-my-mind/#comment-1714
I say I posted it, but it has not appeared on Curry’s blog afer several hours, even though it is definitely on her system. As it is OT here, I thought I would cross post:
Jim, the Pakistani floods exceded the previous highest known flow rates by 15%. They have the second highest deathtoll known of any flood of the Indus (although secondary effects – disease, and famine- of the flood may soon change that). They have flooded more provinces of Pakistan than any flood in the last 80 years. That suggests that in the last 110 years, there have only been three floods of comparable magnitude on the Indus – one in 1901, one in 1929, and the current flood. Durring that period there have been 64 floods, sufficient to provide a reasonable statistical sample. From this data, this flood is certianly more than a 1 in 22 event (2 sigma on a normal distribution), but probably less than a 1 in 81 event (2.5 sigma on a normal distribution). That is not enough, on its own to attribute the destructiveness of the floods to global warming.
However, the Pakistan floods are linked to the Russion heatwave. If the Russian heatwave must be significantly attributed to Global Warming, then so also must the Pakistani floods. The floods, in that context, do not stand as independant evidence of Global Warming, but rather as evidence regarding the potential economic and human cost of Global Warming.
In contrast to the floods, the Russian Heatwave does stand as significant evidence of Global Warming. It was (at least) a 1 in 2,150 event (3.5 sigma) and possibly as much as a 1 in 15,800 event (4 sigma). This is discussed by Tamino and Motl.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/red-hot/
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/08/can-rare-heat-wave-in-big-city-occur-by.html
Having mentioned Motl, I must criticise his post as it contains several, to my mind, significant misunderstandings. To start with, he assumes that temperature variation follows a normal distribution, instead of just approximating to one over a limited range. To illustrate my point, consider a series of throws of two six sided dice, which will approximate to a normal distribution. If we assume it is a normal distribution, however, we will conclude that once in a great while, a throw of two six sided dice will give a result of 13. Motl makes an equivalent error.
We know temperatures do not follow a normal distribution, because if they did then occassionally we would see temperatures 25 or even 50 degrees above the mean – something we never see. At some point above and below the mean, temperatures must cease to approximate to the normal distribution. The question is, at what point? My guess is it is somewhere above 2 sigma, but not above around 2.5 sigma; in which case any temperature extreme 2.5 sigma or more above the mean would be evidence that the climate is in fact shifting. Of course, my guess is a guess.
Motl also makes a guess (though he does not describe it as such) that the point above which temperatures no longer approximate to a normal distribution is above 4 sigma. That is a significant difference. If my guess is correct, then the Russian Heatwave is significant evidence that the climate is shifting (and hence the Pakistani floods evidence of the likely costs of that shift). If Motl is right, than the Russian Heatwaves may just be an artifact of normal variations in the weather. Fortunately, Motl provides us a simple test (although he does not describe it as such) as to who is correct. He calculates that if 4 sigma lies within normal variation, then ,b.on average two 4 sigma events will occur somewhere in the globe each year.
That is a bold prediction, but SFAIK it fails spectacularly. In fact, SFAIK, the Moscow heatwave is the only 4 sigma event to have occured anywhere in the globe in the last 50 years. Of course, I may well be wrong about that, due to limited knowledge, and still more limited statistical analysis. If Motl is correct, however, it should be easy to prove me wrong. Just list the approximately twenty 4 sigma temperature events we should have expected over the last 10 years. Absent such a list, I must operate on the best of my knowledge and conclude that the Russian Heatwave lies outside the range of normal variation and hence is evidence of a warming globe.
The second point on which Motl is misleading is his claim that “nothing detectable is changing about statistical distributions”. In fact, something is transparently changing about statistical distributions – specifically, the ratio of record hot events to record cold events is increasing. That is clear evidence of a warming climate. Tamino gives an example of this, with 17 new national high temperature records set this year, to one low temperature record. (National records are not the best for this type of analysis because of the great variation in size, but it is illustrative.) Grouping these records by time and geography shows that 2010 has had 6 record hot weather events, and only 1 record cold weather event.
When will it be allowed to say that Cuccinelli’s father spent his career as a gas lobbyist and that his advertising company gave almost 100,000 dollars to AG Cuccinelli? It’s on the Internet.
It would be nice to know who the father’s clients are
Jacob Mack, I see you found my comments unanswerable. Are you going to examine the holes in your theory, or are you going to continue making unsupportable claims?
David B. Benson and Phil Scadden, I don’t know about others in this thread, but I have read “Without Hot Air”. One important distinction he makes is between the theoretical and the practical. It is theoretically possible to cover the UK with enough wind turbines and solar cells to power the country. However, it is not practical (something which BPL refuses to accept). Talking about purely theoretical possibilities is a fool’s game, which is why this conversation with Jacob Mack is supremely silly.
Jim Bullis, I suggest you actually read the material you directly quote, otherwise you will just look like an idiot. “Converting chemical energy into electrical energy always wastes energy, and so does converting electrical into chemical energy.”
[inserted to appease reCAPTCHA]
For those wishing to save electricity, it’s really wasteful to have a PC which burns 120W constantly like Vendicar’s.
If you have a real need for a powerful PC, you can either take steps to make sure it’ll boot fast and turn it off when you’re not using it or get a PC which has a standby mode in which it consumes a small fraction of its regular wattage.
But most people don’t need such workhorses. There are plenty of PCs which consume 40W or (much) less. These days, one can easily obtain cheap and unobtrusive general-purpose computers which average around 20W.
Most displays consume quite a bit of power but they all have standby modes and it’s easy to find a display which consumes less than 2W on standy (be careful though: some consume a lot more).
Tom @ 303:
Variation from the mean is the wrong measurement for exactly the “dice” reason you gave, and using “number of record highs versus lows” is likewise the wrong approach for the same reason.
What you want is the change in the mean. If the average September temperature goes from 29C to 28C, but there was a new record high in September, what’s going on? And if there isn’t a new high (or better yet, a new record low), but the average goes from 28 to 29, then what?
You also have to look at longer term than one Russian heatwave. We’re having our second September in a row of below-average sunshine — is that a trend, or is it just two years of poor September sunshine, on account of August wasn’t half bad?
261, Jacob Mack: The Earth will NEVER be 100% powered by renewables; absolutely impossible.
The opposite is true; the Earth will, in the long run, be powered by renewable energy, by definition.
The only questions are how long it takes and how we get to a sustainable future: through gradual change led by technology and democracy or chaos and war causing an abrupt crash.
Personally I favour the former.
FurryCatHerder (@307), change in the mean is, in this case, the hypothesis that is being tested. Clearly, measured changes in the mean are evidence as to whether the mean is changing or not; but other, less direct measurements can also be evidence that the mean is changing. For example, the global retreat in glacier lengths in evidence that the mean temperatures are rising around the globe.
Can a single cluster of temperature records represent significant evidence of a changing mean? Trivially, any temperature recorded above the mean is evidence the mean is increasing. It is just very weak evidence, and weak because if it lies well within one standard deviation, it is a very probable event on the null hypothesis (no change). That follows directly from Bayes theorem. But equally, from Bayes theorem, if an event is very improbable on the null hypothesis (say a 3.5 sigma event), then it’s occurence is significantly stronger evidence for the hypothesis (that the mean is changing).
Now, without going to the trouble of a Baysian probability analysis (which would just be putting numbers to educated guesswork), I think there is good reason to consider the Russian Heatwave sufficiently improbable on the assumption of no warming (relative to its probability on the assumption of GW) that it is worth independant recognition as evidence of the warming globe instead of just being burried under a mob of other statistics. My belief in that regard is defeasible by evidence; but it is not rebutable my failing to consider the distinction between what constitutes evidence, and what constitutes the hypothesis being tested.
Snapple (293) RE “They answer to an elected government.” This whole subthread is over the suggestion that this is the problem and needs to be changed.
RE “All this Ayn Rand stuff is coming from the Cato Institute.” I don’t know about that; I’m talking of anti-tyranny stuff coming from Madison, Jefferson, et al.
[Response: I think we can safely assume that everyone is against tyranny. Please try and get back to something specific. – gavin]
Thomas (294), I’m talking about unrestrained “regulation.” While you might pooh-pooh it at the moment, I can guarantee you would strongly dislike a highway patrol that had no government-imposed limitations.
Vendicar Decarian (297), as I said earlier (and meant), this is admirable. But to expect everyone in the country to duplicate your efforts is whistling Dixie or a pipedream (though pissin’ in the wind is probably a more apt metaphor here…).
I generally agree with Rod (#312). Not that what Vendicar did is sufficient anyway. Regulation is sometimes efficient but I don’t think regulating everything is the answer. That way lies five-year plans and the like.
So if you don’t believe either individual responsibility or regulation are the answer, what is? The answer, dear Rod, is of course taxation. Market-friendly, small-government carbon taxes schemes have been proposed such as Hansen’s fee and dividend.
The point is indeed to stop the expansion of the coal business (see Jim Bullis’ posts) and generally get rid of such destructive enterprises. $200/ton is dirt cheap as a price to demand for burning coal and dumping the toxic fumes and ash on the public. The point is to enable businesses which contribute to the public good, not to wreck civilization as Jim would have us believe. Industrial civilization doesn’t need to burn that much coal, as has been demonstrated for decades in nuke/hydro country. Some of the richest and most pleasant places out there have <10% fossil fuels in their generation mix.
Any material objections? But spare us the FUD please.
No, Rod, Ven D is doing what he does as an individual because the infrastructure doesn’t offer him any other way. In a power network where we can generate our own power and use the network as the ‘battery backup’ for the times when our local solar or wind is inadequate, we don’t have to go to those lengths.
Domestic solar is good, but a large solar-thermal power supply is better. Wind power is good, but being part of a distributed network where the wind is always blowing somewhere is better. The whole lot is better again and a constant supply from a geothermal plant somewhere in the network makes it unbeatable.
Rod, any reply to VD will prolong a digression. Google the name.
309, Tom Curtis: I think there is good reason to consider the Russian Heatwave sufficiently improbable on the assumption of no warming (relative to its probability on the assumption of GW) that it is worth independant recognition as evidence of the warming globe instead of just being burried under a mob of other statistics.
Can you do the same for the Mongolian, Andean, and New Zealand cold waves? As a Bayesian problem, it is a very high dimensional Bayesian problem, with the covariances among the many measures provided how? By the diverse GCMs would be one possibility.
Certainly, individual efforts, no matter how heroic or effective in their own terms, seem unlikely ever to be enough in themselves; those efforts will still be embedded in assumptions, procedures, built environments and social constructs that require the use of energy in ways that aren’t sustainable.
But people have changed their ways of life drastically in the past, and seem likely to do so in the future–in ways either relatively benign or relatively disastrous. Usually this happens as part of an economic restructuring, often related to new technology, as when whale oil was abandoned as a lamp fuel, as when farmers mechanized operations, or for that matter when the transition to agriculture occurred. I suppose changing life ways was stressful then, too; but people managed.
The same will occur as we transition away from fossil fuels; and my guess is that the “end game” of that process will be surprisingly sudden. One of the amusing facets of reading RC over time is the recurring pattern of comments whereby some “renewables skeptic” says “Renewables will never exceed benchmark X,” whereupon someone else generally pops up to say either a) “Wait a sec, I do that at home all the time; it’s saving me Y dollars per year,” or b) “Nation Z achieved that benchmark last year.”
It reminds me of Simon Newcomb, justly renowned as a mathematician and astronomer, whose “airplane skepticism” continued for three years following the Wright brothers’ first flights. My conclusion is that in general the only thing sillier than denying the real difficulties in a given technological development, is the a priori assumption that those difficulties can’t be overcome.
If I may be permitted to recommend a commercial website, I would encourage readers interested in keeping track of current developments in renewable energy, efficiency, smart grid and related technologies to keep an eye on CNet.com’s Green Tech news page at http://news.cnet.com/greentech/.
There is a whole lot going on in the real world that people who make sweeping pronouncements about what renewable energy can “never” do seem to be blissfully unaware of.
To Septic, Tom, Furry and others,
While the Russian heat wave was beyond two standard deviations, that does not necessarily prove that the mean is increasing. The U.S. heat wave of 1936 was similarly high, came near the end of two decades of warming, but temperatures starting falling shortly thereafter. Many states reached temperatures of 120F, which have not been witnessed since. Even at three standard deviations from the mean, the probability is still 1%, which could happen once every century.
IF the mean is changing, then the probability of this type of event increases. Just because it occurred, does not necessarily mean that the mean increased. Likewise, the Southern cold snaps have a small, but non-negligible probability of occurance.
Gavin (310), well, that’s not entirely obvious, but your point is well taken.
Not one person in this thread who has stated that the whole world can and will be powered by renewable has produced one shred of evidence but I can show evidence to the contrary:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jcn6sgt7RpoC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=Solar+energy+cannot+power+the+world:+scientific+american&source=bl&ots=0AV5ZXPCjv&sig=w2tAEiMOgFQuf1MvgUpN30g2byk&hl=en&ei=E5ebTOWZEYHWtQPt0sH-CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Solar%20energy%20cannot%20power%20the%20world%3A%20scientific%20american&f=false
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/global/23energy.html?_r=2
http://www.countryguardian.net/
#305 Didactylos: you can keep making things up and not doing your homework to see wht we will not power the world on renewables alone but if you are sincere at all in preserving the environment and reducing GHG emissions you really ought to stop deluding others and state the actual facts.What I am stating is not a theory it is just plain old truth.
Many of my fellow posters really do need to study physics, math and consult engineers about the many problems not being addressed in this thread at all.
Solar issue:
1.)Collection, storage and transmission problems.
2.) Electricity generated by solar power stations is intermittent which cannot be handled by out current power grid.
3.) Solar cells are far too expensive. The average citizen cannot afford them and to build such a large scale project in the desert would be immensely costly in terms of engineering, materials and labor. Who is going to pay for that largescale of a project.
4.) 1 KW-h of energy generated from solar cells costs about 35 cents where the same energy produced through combustion of fossil fuels costs about 4-5 cents.
5.) Theory and application have not and are not the same thing in terms of producing energy and energy conduits.
Now, having said all of that I do support the use of more solar panels, some wind tubines, carbon capture, hybrids even with their limitations as wellas EV development even with their drawbacks as well.
Chemists specifically and engineers along with marketers of the solar product lines have a lot of work ahead of them and the reference is thus
again:http://books.google.com/books?id=jcn6sgt7RpoC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=Solar+energy+cannot+power+the+world:+scientific+american&source=bl&ots=0AV5ZXPCjv&sig=w2tAEiMOgFQuf1MvgUpN30g2byk&hl=en&ei=E5ebTOWZEYHWtQPt0sH-CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Solar%20energy%20cannot%20power%20the%20world%3A%20scientific%20american&f=false
I also spoke with 4 engineer friends of mine and 3 out of the 4 support more reliance upon renewable energy but none of them think they can power the world and that there remains many technical hurdles as well, not just for now but well into the future.
Other issues include: falling fossil fuel prices, in 2004 solar derived energy only provided 0.01% of the world’s energy and serious research has been going on since the 1970’s so where is the big global change?
http://books.google.com/books?id=-a_b_KtYJNQC&pg=PA6&dq=Problems+with+solar+power&hl=en&ei=xZmbTP0IjKqwA9-2rKwJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Problems%20with%20solar%20power&f=false
Again I support Germany’s efforts and other countries where it is viable but you have not as of yet answered my questions regarding collection, storage and transport. How the heck are you going to do it? When world class engineers are stumped and countries like Spain are having such poltical and economic fallout what can be done?
I wish I could have the rosy colored glasses on and see the future as a bright renewable energy utopia but that is not the harsh reality.
Quote #305 Didactylos: I see you found my comments unanswerable. Are you going to examine the holes in your theory, or are you going to continue making unsupportable claims?
Apparently I find your comments very answerable. What holes do you refer? Do you have any evidence to support your claim that my “theory” as you claim, has holes? How are my claims unsupportable when I just supported them? You need to re-think your position I think, based upon: data, logic and reason alone.
AGW is real. It has serious current consequences. One of those is the current shift in weather extremes, though not 100% provable, the attribution studies and predictions of the IPCC are very robust and compelling.
Some commentary:http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/Editorials/201009220734
I wanted to make sure to use several science book references as well as several blogs and several news media outlets as well. We each have different ways and manners in processing and accepting information.
http://renewableenergyarticles.blogspot.com/2010/08/are-highly-efficient-solar-cells.html
I like approaching the perspectives as best I can of the: engineer, diehard physicist and not just the chemist and biologists though the latter are more my background.
Here is some technological promise for solar cells as well:
http://books.google.com/books?id=zWE0Z4Q8egUC&pg=PA1&dq=Solar+technology+now&hl=en&ei=Lp2bTPvzBZK2sAPjtuXPCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Solar%20technology%20now&f=false
I am not biased and I am not joining some group think boat. I just look at the data, summarize the facts and talk to experts in their respective fields as I pour over the textbooks and journals.
SA this was interesting: http://news.cnet.com/greentech/
I am encouraged to see new developments unfolding. This hardly means that the world will be powered on renewables. The site also fails to mention the many economic and technological challenges. That scooter: where is the electricity coming from in the first place and what kind of emissions are involved in its manufacture?
Anonymous Coward (313), I might strongly disagree with the specifics of your solution, but if it is put in place by a duly elected congress in a republic government that understands its #1 priority is preserving individual liberty, as I assume from your post, then I would succumb. I don’t disagree that coal is the worst polluter and ought to be addressed strongly. But, 1) it should not be addressed with malice, which it sometimes sounds like, and 2) particular care of the transients need to be a factor: good board design can make a CPU hum, but if transients are not considered the wrong change can blow up a CPU in a microsecond. Change the cost of coal from $20 to $200 next month and there is a fair chance society might blow up.
Did I spare the FUD, whatever that (or just D?) is.
Kevin McKinney (317), your point has merit, but, in your two examples, the paradigm change was almost immediately recognized by individuals as a solid tangible immediate benefit. Even then the timing was almost entirely a function of individual demand. As desirous as AGM mitigation might in fact be, it is not of the character described above. Explain to any one of the 200 million average Joes how their life will be so much better if he/she just cuts his electric usage by 80+%, rides a bike instead of a car for 95% of his transportation, and throws out his TV, and your well-being could be in immediate danger.
You’re right that just because something looks extremely difficult at the moment doesn’t mean it should be concluded it can’t be done or we shouldn’t try. On the other hand trying to convince the same Average Joe that this very difficult effort is a piece of cake and right around the corner will lose all of your credibility.
Jacob, most of your questions and assertions in the above post already have topics. You can’t discuss everything in every topic and insist others answer you where you want. This is impractical; have you considered starting a blog?
Jacob Mack: Really, your posts are so incoherent and illogical that I think you’re not even a troll – you’re just confused. For example, you didn’t notice that the links you supplied did not support your argument, nor that your posts are riddled with errors. You didn’t notice that people are not saying what you think they said. You didn’t notice the problem that I highlighted in one of your earlier posts – I’m not sure you even grasped my reasoning, and you certainly haven’t acknowledged your error.
Is there any reason anyone should waste time discussing anything with you at all? Spend a little time reading what others wrote, and trying to understand it before you write a completely irrelevant essay.
To be honest, I’m not at all sure that you even grasp the difference between “will not” and “can not”. There is absolutely no doubt that you have failed to understand that if something can be done, then it isn’t reasonable to claim that it will never be done.
We can power the world with renewables. Will we? Well, we have a big job to do, don’t we?
Jacob,
You “support” Germany’s efforts which have essentially yielded nothing so far in terms of lowering CO2 emissions. Yet you do not acknowledge the numerous countries which are using very little fossil fuels for generation.
You have arguments against solar and wind for baseload. Well, duh! Solar and wind aren’t a plug-in replacement for coal. But that’s not an argument for the use of fossil fuels.
As has been demonstrated, the share of fossil fuels in the generation mix can be brought down close to zero with boring old tech… and price hikes in many cases. It’s not a technological problem. The technological challenge comes in when people ask for the moon or are simply looking for an excuse to delay economic change.
321, Jacob Mack. Your earlier post did say “NEVER”. Now you have written that there are problems to be solved.
Look into the journal Science, August 13, 2010, pp 779-803 for some other technically informed reviews.
All I hear from these new responses is a bunch hot air. That means even Hank has not addressed one single issue which is a rarity. Thus I digress after this response post since no one can even answer one of my questions or support the claim that we can power the globe with renewables. I had a blog once but no time to maintain it much like I do not have time to go in and edit a wiki article on global warming. Hank, all of these questions need to be answered before such an ambitious claim can be made: “we can power the world with renewables alone.” Unfortunately Didactylos cannot even answer one of my questions. Oh and yes I understand the difference between can and will. We cannot in terms of technology and we would not even if we had the technology due to political and economic issues.
SA I think you are a very hopeful but naive person in these terms.
AC we cannot completely stop using fossil fuels. I wish we could but we cannot.
RC has not threads where these issues are anywhere near solved. Nor does any site on the internet or any science or engineering textbook anywhere. How do I know? I checked. RC does not give solutions as so much discussed the science behind AGW and some theoretical solutions not yet materialized along with some regional alternative energy found to be helpful.
Hank, with all due respect not one person in this thread could even answer one question like: how to store the energy or transport it.
Didactylos it is you who are confused and it is a shame since you seem nice enough.If you actually bothered reading my references instead of skimming a quarter of a page you would have seen all of my claims asserted and echoed from them… so much for actually reading anymore… you seem to me to be in denial among others about the limitations of renewables…
I was hoping someone could actually show I was wrong:)
Could not resist as these are helpful but do not solve the problems:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/hit-the-brakes-hard/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/
https://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group
I think we need to look at adaptation too since renewables alone will not do it all. Nuclear power is a dangerous proposition to make too widespread.
I love RC since it brings so many issues under one blog moderated and bloggd about people in the climate sciences as such.
AC Most everyone here floats freely twixt “banked” technology and social issues such as governance and tribal influence. This is not to say this is wrong, but it begs for a cleaner dialogue. Jacob has some points to make that are of course annoying to some who would support an all renewables economic and social structure. Well “duh”.
One cannot argue the practicals and play the purist; this is not helpful, and lengthens the time it takes to engorge the vast architecture of the well meaning and those who consider themselves to be somehow above what they might call “dross”.
It occurs to me that between trying to sound smart and rubbing one’s imagined ‘wounds’, the baby is in the gutter with the bathwater.
I’ll check back in another two years to see if this place has gone anywhere.
Til then, adios.
Jacob, if you look at the evidence here you will see that incident solar irradiance alone is already many order of magnitudes higher than what is required to power civilization, and with the exception of geothermal and nuclear energy, incident solar irradiance already powers agriculture, weather, hydrology etc. It’s already a done deal.
So please enjoy you dinner in a warm habitat tonight, brought to you by the sun and the insulating properties of greenhouse gases.
SM 328, There are many technical matters to be faced to get renewables more widespread, not to a global level, powering everywhere, as that will “NEVER” happen. I support continued spread of renewables. SM also, thank you for the references. I will be reading them to be sure and getting back to you. I have read many technical reviews from Science so I may have already read them but I will check to be sure.
This discussion in comments has gone, once again, way off-topic for RealClimate. There are many another blog for discussions about energy solutions. Kindly take it to one or another of those.
Thank you.
Tom Curtis @ 309:
Uh, no. It is possible for the mean to decline while there are still events in the +2 or +3 sigma range. All that is required is enough events below the mean to counteract the above mean events — and that gives you a declining mean =with= events +2 or +3 sigma greater.
Pace David B. Benson (who is basically correct, as usual–we are OT here) two quick responses before I drop the topic.
1) Jacob Mack–I don’t see anything in your sources (and yes, I read most of them through–NOT the history of PV tech!) that justifies (or, to me, even suggests) “never.” Rather, they support “later rather than sooner.” Spain will sort out their energy policy sooner or later. Efficiencies (both in the manufacturing and the energy-harvesting senses) will continue to improve. Wind will continue to be installed and supply an increasing percentage of electrical generation in suitable places. But though current growth rates continue to be pretty spectacular, it’s true of course that renewables are still a small percentage of the mix in most countries.
2) Rod B., you’re right that individuals change in response to perceived benefit–though also to economic competition; it’s on record (anecdotally at least) that a lot of folks hated to give up their horse! That’s why one of the keys to the current dilemma is honest pricing for fossil fuels; eliminate tax breaks to fossil fuel producers, let them raise prices, and see what happens to the renewable market! Of course, it’s politically much more palatable to do it the other way round and hand out money to renewables instead; hence all the grumbling that they “can’t survive without subsidies.”
But “you can’t railroad til it’s time to railroad,” which I take to mean that technical and economic tipping points have their own logic. Oil is going to get very price sometime relatively soon. When it does, an opening will be created. We’ve had a couple of false starts on that; but it will happen for real one of these times. And it looks increasingly to me as if some of the alternatives are going to be ready for the big time when their shot comes.
Jacob and Rod: Of course, nothing guarantees that this will happen–or especially that it will happen in time for us to avoid the 2C “bumper.” The timeline for that has grown quite short, it would appear.
To both
David B. Benson you are a poster that I respect very much. I take no issue with getting back to the central issues raised by this post: Warmer and warmer.
David Benson @ 334:
While you’re absolutely correct, “energy solutions” is where most of the debunking has to be done in order to get past much of the resistance to dumping fossil fuel sources. One solution might be a thread dedicated to the existing state of the art as well as developments that are in the pipeline.
Many of the “it can’t be done” comments are based on studies from the 1990’s and early part of the 2000’s. The chief problem was dealing with up and down regulation — how to manage the changes in renewable energy production. A study out of the University of Michigan, as I recall, said that “Balancing Energy” and “Regulation” costs were going to make renewables cost-prohibitive above about 10% penetration (though others put that at 20%). The primary solution has been “Demand Response” loads where utilities send signals to consumers to curtail consumption in exchange for reduced rates. As I understand it, ERCOT — Energy Regulation Council of Texas — has managed to get “Demand Response” loads certified as “Spinning Reserves” and often the amount of “Demand Response” load that is on-line exceeds the required amount of ready reserve by a factor of two or three.
The other major argument is “it isn’t being done (therefore it will never be done)” and that’s just because there’s no point in building a power plant if there is already plenty of power. Where there is demand for new capacity, renewable plants =are= being built. When you consider that no power plant has an infinite life expectancy, those non-renewable plants that are leaving service present a perfect opportunity for renewable plants to take their place.
The final argument is “it costs so much!”, and the only response to that is that the prices are continuing to fall, and in many cases the costs are now very competitive. At $4 / watt installed, solar is price competitive with “The Grid” where I live. If commercial quality wind (Class 3 or better) is available, wind has been competitive for a while.
To give the nay-sayers an idea how far things have progressed, I now routinely see =negative= prices for energy in some markets. That’s a market waiting to be exploited the heck out of — especially as I’ve seen negative prices as high as $500 / megawatt-hour. The grid pays you to take the energy, then pays you when you give it back. It’s a racket, I tell you.
“For those wishing to save electricity, it’s really wasteful to have a PC which burns 120W constantly like Vendicar’s.” – 306
Very true, and why I look forward to switching to a lower powered netbook sometime next year.
I am delaying until those devices are sufficiently compute capable to do a good job of video rendering.
Having a 120 watt PC running 24 hours a day consumes 2.8 KwH per day, which is between 45 percent and 30 percent of my daily consumption.
But of course it’s not just the PC, but also the router, cable modem, and speaker system. My guess is that the PC itself is only consuming around 80 watts of power.
“That scooter: where is the electricity coming from in the first place and what kind of emissions are involved in its manufacture?” – 322
Not much useful info regarding that electric scooter, but in my area there is an ever increasing number of e-bikes – speed limited, battery powered scotoers. They are powered by roughly the equivalent of 2 car batteries, and have a typical range of about 35 kilometers.
The primary impediment to motorcycle efficiency is wind resistance – motorcycles have drag coefficients as high or higher than automobiles, So they need disproportionately powerful engines to push them through the air. But still, a 150 CC gas powered engine can propel a motorcycle over any road, up any hill and in any weather, at speeds of 100km/h.
At that speed a well tuned engine will get 60 mpg. Motorcycle hybreds are doing 160 mpg or more.
Significantly higher efficiency is quite possible by simply providing an enclosure for the driver. Trikes of that nature are already available.
Earlier, I asked Jacob Mack “Is there any reason anyone should waste time discussing anything with you at all?”
It appears the answer is “no”.
I appreciate that discussion of renewable energy is off-topic, but if the moderators will permit, I would recommend to interested readers a resource I have linked to before: the Renewables 2010 Global Status Report published by WorldWatch Institute and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).
Kevin McKinney, while I respect your opinions I think it take too much faith to believe that the globe will completely powered by renewables. That is all, but you are another I have immense respect for as state over in Tamino.
Didactylos,
apparently people do want to discuss the topic brought up by Ike and continued by many people in this thread.I will be nice in my responses too.
while I respect your opinions I think it take too much faith to believe that the globe will completely powered by renewables.
Jacob, let me reiterate, with the exception of a small amount of geothermal energy and nuclear power, the world already is powered by renewable energy. Unfortunately, human beings are using the energy stored in carbon – coal, gas and oil, at a rate that far exceeds nature’s (through the benevolence of a star called the sun) timescale for renewal. The same reasoning applies to nature’s timescale for removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now one can make the argument that nuclear and thus geothermal energy drives the processes (plate tectonics) that drives the sequestration and storage of that stored solar energy into reservoirs for our future use, but the energy stored is solar energy, and it is indeed renewable.
Thomas Lee: #345 as a biologist and chemist I can appreciate your comment.
Indeed the energy we need on the Earth comes from the sun. And it is equally true that we are using fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate due to higher energy needs in part due to over-population and of course fossil fuel lobbyists as well. Soalr energy comes in as short wave and gets converted largely to long wave. Green house gases hold more IFR within the earth-atmospheric system. I am not arguing that the sun does not provide for our energy needs as Gibbs and bio-energetics clearly shows us in specific detail as does solar physics.
I am discussing the: storage, transport, and continued large scale supplying through technology such energy the world.
I did read through the Science reference given to me among many others and the problems are not solved currently and in the long term there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. This is not to say that we cannot, are not and will not make progress but no one has supplied evidence or a compelling argument that we can and will supply clean energy to the whole world. Oh and we have more than a century of natural gas left, quite a bit of coal and we have not reached our total peak oil reserves as of yet either… Sceintific American has a recent issue discussing all of that though.
333, Jacob Mack. Perhaps we can meet in 10 years and compare notes. I anticipate at least 5 doublings of energy produced by renewable sources by then, but no more than 10 doublings.
342, Secular Animist. Thanks for the link.
Cool SM # 347.
#286 and #288 Benson and alex,
Lord Kelvin and I are really annoyed with your support of the MPGE nonsense.
We are going to be really annoyed if the moderator does not check your understanding of thermodynamics, and allow you to pronounce that we are incorrect without challenge.
#305 Didactolos,
Reading is recommended back.
Perhaps you are thinking that MacKay is talking about chemical energy other than that which is produced by burning gasoline. He is not. The whole discussion is about heat and electrical energy.
So yes, every bit of electrical energy will yield heat, somewhere, maybe not exactly where you want it, but for the most part it is easy to get it on a one for one basis.
Interesting to be called an idiot here at realclimate.
#290 Phil Scadden,
Sorry I left you out in my previous response.